Through your mastery of the backroads of the internet, you've found my weblog. I write science fiction and fantasy, and I talk about that here. I also talk about my life, my hobbies, my elderly and presuming cat, and various other things, including TV shows and books I like, my Colorful Neighborhood and lame hobbies, things I did this weekend, and so on.

This is a public blog, and I very, very rarely post anything friends-locked. You don't have to ask my permission to add me as a friend, to read or to comment. I often don't add people back, but that's because I'm swamped, not because I don't think you're interesting.

This blog is one part commonplace, one part plate-glass window into the life of a working writer, and one-part working journal.

It's a public blog; go ahead and add, read, comment, ask questions. All I ask is that you aim for politeness, and exercise the sort of common courtesy you would in someone else's living room. If you don't know what common courtesy is, ask your mother. If I think somebody is being rude, I generally explain it to them before I take drastic action, so don't fret too much.

Welcome in. There's drinks in the fridge, and if you get here early, you might score a spot in the hammock or on the futon. Feel free to introduce yourself, if you haven't before.

Watch out for the man-eating plants.

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"This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."-- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

"To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes."-- Akira Kurosawa

"The work is not upon us to complete, yet neither are we free to desist from it."-- Rabbi Tarfon

"Let no one deem me humble or weak, a woman with folded hands. I am cast to another mold: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life, glory belongs."-- Euripedes, Medea

"Never apologize. Never explain."-- Evelyn Waugh

"As for ideology, the Hell with it. All of it."-- Ursula K. LeGuin

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"matociquala" is Dakota for "little bear." I share a birthday with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, and though I grew up in central Connecticut, I then moved to the Mojave desert and lived there for seven years. It was... broadening. I'm back in New England now.

Elizabeth Bear is my real name, but not all of it. I'm not related to Greg; "Bear" is actually one of my middle names, but my last name is Ukrainian and pronounceability has proved the better part of valor.